Magic Hour

Cal looked up. “No kidding? I gotta turn on the TV more.”

Ellie pulled off the mask and set it on the desk. “She was dismissed from the lawsuit.”

“Did you call her?”

“Of course. Her answering machine had a lovely tone. I think she’s avoiding me.”

Peanut took a step forward. The old oak floorboards, first hammered into place at the turn of the century when Bill Whipman had been the town’s police chief, shuddered at the movement, but like everything in Rain Valley, they were sturdier than they appeared. The West End was a place where things—and people—were built to last. “You should try again.”

“You know how jealous Julia is of me. She especially wouldn’t want to talk to me now.”

“You think everyone is jealous of you.”

“I do not.”

Peanut gave her one of those Who-do-you-think-you’re-fooling? looks that were the cornerstone of friendship. “Come on, Ellie. Your baby sister looked like she was hurting. Are you going to pretend you can’t talk to her because twenty years ago you were Homecoming Queen and she belonged to the Math club?”

In truth, Ellie had seen it, too—the haunted, hunted look in Julia’s eyes—and she’d wanted to reach out and help her younger sister. Julia had always felt things too keenly; it was what made her a great psychiatrist. “She wouldn’t listen to me, Peanut. You know that. She considers me only slightly smarter than a pet rock. Maybe—”

The sound of footsteps stopped her.

Someone was running toward their office.

Ellie got to her feet just as the door swung open, hitting the wall with a crack.

Lori Forman skidded into the room. She was soaking wet and obviously cold; her whole body was shaking. Her kids—Bailey, Felicia, and Jeremy—were clustered around her.

“You gotta come,” Lori said to Ellie.

“Take a breath, Lori. Tell me what’s happened.”

“You won’t believe me. Heck, I’ve seen it and I don’t believe me. Come on. There’s something on Magnolia Street.”

“Yee-ha,” Peanut said. “Something’s actually happening in town.” She reached for her coat on the coatrack beside her desk. “Hurry up, Cal. Forward the emergency calls to your cell phone. We don’t want to miss all the excitement.”

Ellie was the first one out the door.

TWO

ELLIE PULLED HER CRUISER INTO AN EMPTY PARKING SLOT ON THE corner of Magnolia and Woodland and killed the engine. It sputtered a few times, coughing like an old man, then fell silent.

The rain stopped at the same time, and sunlight peered through the clouds.

Even Ellie, who’d lived here all of her life, was awed by the sudden change of weather. It was Magic Hour, the moment in time when every leaf and blade of grass seemed separate, when sunlight, burnished by the rain and softened by the coming night, gave the world an impossibly beautiful glow.

In the passenger seat, Peanut leaned forward. The vinyl seat squeaked at the movement. “I don’t see nothin’.”

“Me, either.” This from Cal, who sat perfectly erect in the backseat, his tall, lanky body folded into neat thirds. His long, bony fingers formed a steeple.

Ellie studied the town square. Clouds the color of old nails moved across the sky, trying to diffuse the fading light, but now that the sun was here, it wouldn’t be pushed aside. Rain Valley—all five blocks of it—seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. Brick storefronts, built one after another in the halcyon salmon-and-timber days of the seventies, shone like hammered copper.

There was a crowd outside of Swain’s drugstore, and another one across the street in front of Lulu’s hair salon. No doubt the patrons of The Pour House would come stumbling out any second, demanding to know what everyone was looking at.

“You there, Chief?” came a voice over the radio.

Ellie flicked the button and answered, “I’m here, Earl.”

“Come on down to the tree in Sealth Park.” There was a bunch of static, then: “Move slow. I ain’t kiddin’.”